sulfur

• sulphur (UK and Commonwealth; no longer standard in scientific usage)

From Middle English sulphur, borrowed from Anglo-Norman sulfre, from Latin sulfur, from sulpur itself of uncertain origin. Displaced Old English swefl and largely displaced brimstone.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈsʌl.fə/
• (US) enPR: sŭl'fər, IPA^(key): /ˈsʌl.fɚ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: sul‧fur

sulfur (usually uncountable, plural sulfurs)

2. (uncountable) A chemical element (symbol S) with an atomic number of 16, having a bright yellow color and characteristic smell, used commercially in a variety of products such as insecticides, black powder, and matchsticks.

   Synonym: (archaic, not in technical usage) brimstone

   Hypernym: chalcogen

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC:

     A Dungeon horrible, on all ſides round / As one great Furnace flam’d, yet from thoſe flames / No light, but rather darkneſs viſible / […] but torture without end / Still urges, and a fiery Deluge, fed / With ever-burning Sulphur unconſum’d:

   • 1837, Thomas Carlyle, chapter 1, in The French Revolution: A History […], volume I (The Bastille), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, book I (Death of Louis XV):

     Sure only that man is mortal; that with the life of one mortal snaps irrevocably the wonderfulest talisman, and all Dubarrydom rushes off, with tumult, into infinite Space; and ye, as subterranean Apparitions are wont, vanish utterly,—leaving only a smell of sulphur!

   • 1907, Herbert M. Vaughan, The Naples Riviera‎^[1]:

     Scarcely had these manifestations ceased at Ustica, than Vesuvius began to show signs of increased activity; the supplies in the wells on the mountain sides began to fail, and there was observed a strong taste of sulphur in the drinking water; whilst—most dreaded phenomenon of all—the ever-active crater of Stromboli, that lies midway between Naples and Messina, suddenly lapsed into quiescence.

   • 2003, Cory Doctorow, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom‎^[2], Tor Books:

     It went like this: first, we were cavemen, then there was ancient Greece, then Rome burned (cue sulfur-odor FX), then there was the Great Depression, and, finally, we reached the modern age.

   • 2015 February 25, Kevin McElvaney, “Inside Indonesia's Ijen Volcano”, in The Atlantic‎^[3]:

     Local workers hike up the side of the mountain and down into the crater at the top to harvest its sulfur—a byproduct of the gas that escapes from the volcano’s vents and collects near the shores of an acidic lake at the crater’s center. The chemical is used in industry worldwide, from making matchsticks to vulcanizing rubber, but Ijen’s sulfur goes mostly to local factories, which use it to bleach sugar.

3. (countable, uncountable) A yellowish green colour, like that of sulfur.

   sulfur:  

4. Any of various pierid butterflies of the subfamily Coliadinae, especially the sulfur-coloured species.

   Coordinate term: yellow

sulfur (comparative more sulfur, superlative most sulfur)

1. Of a yellowish green colour, like that of sulfur.
2. Having a characteristic sulfur-like smell, reminiscent of rotten eggs.
   • 2023 May 2, Rachel Gutman-Wei, “Beware the Ozempic Burp”, in The Atlantic‎^[4]:

     On the November morning when the sulfur burps began, Derron Borders was welcoming prospective students at the graduate school where he works in New York. […] Sulfur burps appear to be a somewhat rare side effect of semaglutide, tirzepatide, and other drugs in their class, known as GLP-1 receptor agonists.

sulfur (third-person singular simple present sulfurs, present participle sulfuring, simple past and past participle sulfured)

1. (transitive) To treat with sulfur, or a sulfur compound, especially to preserve or to counter agricultural pests.

• David Barthelmy (1997–2025) “Sulfur”, in Webmineral Mineralogy Database.
• “sulfur”, in Mindat.org‎^[5], Hudson Institute of Mineralogy, 2000–2025.

sulfur m (plural sulfure, definite sulfuri, definite plural sulfuret)

1. (chemistry) sulfur

• FGJSSH: Fjalor i gjuhës së sotme shqipe [Dictionary of the modern Albanian language]‎^[6], 1980

Borrowed from Latin sulfur; doublet of the inherited sofre.

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic, Valencia) [sulˈfur]

sulfur m (plural sulfurs)

1. sulfide, sulphide

• disulfur

• “sulfur”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007
• “sulfur”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2025
• “sulfur” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “sulfur” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

Borrowed from English sulfur.

sulfur m

1. Synonym: loskven

Ultimately borrowed from Latin sulfur; cf. English sulfur.

sulfur

1. (obsolete) sulphur
   • 1855, Tidsskrift for populære fremstillinger af naturvidenskaben, page 379:

     ... men meget snart gik man bort fra disse bestemte Stoffer, og Sulfur og Mercurius gik nu fra at være  ...

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 1896, Alfred Georg Ludvig Lehmann, Overtro og trolddom fra de æeldste tider til vore dage:

     ... forskellige Stoffer adskilte sig kun fra hinanden derved, at de indeholdt forskellige Mængder af Sulfur og Merkurius; ...

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 1918, Det Kongelige Danske videnskabernes selskabs skrifter: Naturvidenskabelig og mathematisk afdeling:

     Thi Agerjord er ikke andet end brændbare Bestanddele (Sulfur) og Alkali (sal fixum), ...

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

• svovl

Learned borrowing from Latin sulfur.

• (Standard Indonesian) IPA^(key): /ˈsulfur/ [ˈsul.fʊr]
• Rhymes: -ulfur
• Syllabification: sul‧fur

sulfur (plural sulfur-sulfur)

1. (chemistry) sulfur

   Synonym: belerang

• “sulfur” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.

• sulphur, sulpur

From Hellenization of sulpur, of uncertain origin.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈsʊɫ.fʊr]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈsul.fur]

sulfur n (genitive sulfuris); third declension

1. sulfur, brimstone
2. lightning

Third-declension noun (neuter, imparisyllabic non-i-stem).

• “sulfur”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “sulfur”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• sulfur in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.

Borrowed from English sulfur, from Middle English, from Anglo-Norman sulfre, from Latin sulfur.

• IPA^(key): /sulfur/
• Rhymes: -ulfur

sulfur (Jawi spelling سولفور, plural sulfur-sulfur)

1. sulfur (element)

   Synonym: belerang